Commentary: Women are fastest growing group of outdoors participants

Prefatory Note by Natalie Jarnstedt

Hunters are decreasing in numbers, nationally and in more states than not, so they have been preying on young kids for youth hunts, and “independent”, “strong” women to take up the slack, They never use “kill”, but euphemisms like take, harvest, bag, remove, down…. (you name it!.) They see no problem with publishing sanitized cruelty, making the carcass look life-like, yet would never show reality of blood trickling from their mouths, blood at entry wound of gunshot or arrow (conveniently removed and hidden), with smiling or grinning killers proudly holding up the carcasses….

Field & Stream has an ad that local sports shops can use to sell their killing wares, making it really patriotic to kill animals, with camo-clad, armed women and men, military-style, defending us from those dangerous terrorist animals out there. Preying on patriotism, Homeland Security style, it is now heroic to kill defenseless animals.

The family that kills together, stays together, eh?

Non-consumptive outdoor activities actually bring more money to states than hunting, yet they very cleverly imply that hunting is the only outdoor activity…

See: Find the entire “Women in the Outdoors” survey at www.southwickassociates.com. SICK, SICK, SICK!

I corresponded with a newspaper editor in Oregon a few years ago, complaining about printing trophy photos of a hunter with a mountain lion, sanitized to look life-like, asking why bloody reality couldn’t be depicted – he said that people would be turned off by blood and gore… no shit, Sherlock! How do they think the animals died, by hypnotism?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vdvMMKFC7vA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvdvMMKFC7vA

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/outdoors/2013/10/27/Women-are-fastest-growing-group-of-outdoors-participants/stories/201310270133

Women are fastest growing group of outdoors participants

October 26, 2013

Sisters Mekenzie Saban, left, and Samantha Morgan

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For more than a decade, we’ve been hearing about declining outdoors participation — particularly in hunting, particularly among young people.

But beneath the headlines, data show the fastest-growing segment of outdoors users — including in hunting, including the young — is comprised of women.

More than a quarter of all freshwater anglers are women, and while the percentage of female hunters is lower, their numbers are growing.

“Many people may be surprised to learn the traditional view of the outdoors person is changing. But to anybody who hunts, fishes and shoots, the presence of women on the water, in the woods and at the range is anything but new, and certainly not surprising,” said Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates.

The Florida-based polling company he formed in 1989 is paid to gather data for studies commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state wildlife agencies and nonprofit environmental groups, and compile market data for sportfishing and other outdoors-related industries.

Noticing raw data in many unrelated polls showing a trend in rising outdoors participation among women, Southwick took the unusual step of culling and repackaging data on women from three years of studies. The data were compiled in a new survey, “Women in the Outdoors 2012,” and released to the media.

“Typically when you look at data reflecting cultural change, you’re not seeing monumental shifts,” Southwick said. “Changes can be real slow — a percentage point or two. But over the U.S. population at large, that can include a huge number of people. That’s what we’re seeing among women participating in outdoor recreation.”

U.S. Fish and Wildlife data, collected in part by Southwick, shows that in 2001, 26.1 percent of freshwater anglers and 9.2 percent of hunters were female. In 2011, women comprised nearly 27 percent of all inland anglers and 11 percent of hunters.

Southwick’s data shows that while women are participating more in traditional outdoors recreation, their preferences are sometimes different than those of men.

Overwhelmingly, guys like to target specific fish species. Sixty-three percent go after largemouth and spotted bass, and to a lesser degree they fish for panfish, trout, smallmouth bass and catfish. While 27 percent of men are happy to catch non-targeted species, 43 percent of women prefer to fish for “whatever bites.”

According to the Southwick study, 86 percent of women fish to spend time on or near the water, and more so than men, they view fishing as an opportunity to spend time with family and friends (84 percent to 71 percent).

Women use dead bait including fish eggs, cut fish and commercially processed baits more than men (38 percent to 28 percent), and a higher percentage of women than men prefer to fly fish (23 percent to 20 percent).

Locally, many women fit Southwick’s profiles.

Jennifer Shook of West Deer is a prolific angler. She fishes about every other day in the summer, plans to go ice fishing if the weather cooperates and wants to explore hunting.

“The thing that I most enjoy about fishing is that I always catch interesting fish,” she said. “I love the fight that they give while you’re trying to reel them in.”

Kate Toth of White Oak learned to fish from her father and continued on her own as she grew older. She took her kids fishing and is now passing the tradition to her grandson.

“It can be a challenge because you have to know what you’re doing — what you do to catch a trout is different than trying to catch a bass,” she said. “It can be relaxing because you’re sitting in the peaceful outdoors, happy, communing with nature.”

Toth is among the women registered for an upcoming Post-Gazette steelhead-fishing bus trip to Lake Erie tributaries.

Nationally about a half million women hunt, and a million hunt and fish. The hunting target of choice among men and women is deer (slightly more than 70 percent). Target preferences remain about the same for both sexes, but significantly fewer women hunt for coyote, upland game and dove. More women than men hunt for elk (10 percent to 6 percent).

At 17, Samantha Morgan of the North Side has downed more deer than many guys. Raised in a hunting family, she had her first crossbow kill at 14 and has taken a spike, 7-point, 8-point, 6-point and a doe. Last year, on the opening day of rifle deer season, she and her sister Mekenzie Saban each harvested a buck — Mekenzie, then 14, took a 130-inch 9-point.

“Our family is tight-knit. We fish all the time and camp” said Samantha. “I just have a really good balance of things. I follow trends — I’m a teenage girl and like the girly stuff — but I still like going out to deer camp and hanging with my dad and all the guys.”

Southwick said the trend among sportswomen has piqued the interest of outdoor products industries.

“The data is showing women don’t want to compete with men or do something that’s very specialized or demanding,” he said. “They’re realizing it’s just fun to get outside.”

Find the entire “Women in the Outdoors” survey at www.southwickassociates.com.

The Usual Suspects Try Again to Reintroduce Trophy Hunting to Kenya

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2013:
(Actually published on October 8, 2013)
By Josphat Ngonyo

Hunters, many of them foreigners, have been the plague of animals in Africa, their depredations often facilitated by lax rules and corrupt governments.

Trophy hunters, a persistent type of human degenerate, many of them rich foreigners, have been the plague of besieged animals in Africa, their depredations often facilitated by lax rules and corrupt governments.

It is now official that cropping, defined as “harvesting of [wild] animals for a range of products,” including meat, horns, and hides, may be re-introduced to Kenya through the newly proposed Wildlife Conservation & Management Bill, 2013.
Permitting cropping, which was explicitly banned in November 2003, will undermine the sport-hunting ban in effect in Kenya since 1977. It will also in a big way demotivate nations that look toward Kenya as a conservation model, such as Botswana, which in November 2012 banned sport hunting, effective in September 2013.

Those who have exerted pressure to include cropping in the 2013 Wildlife Conservation & Management Bill are the same people who pushed a 2004 bill to repeal the ban on sport hunting, introduced by G.G. Kariuki, then a Member of Parliament for Laikipia West.

Pressure from large ranch-owners led to an experimental cropping in 1991, which was initially to run for five years, but was allowed to continue for 13 years. An evaluation done by Tasha Bioservices Ltd. established that corruption, mismanagement, and abuse of the designated quotas were flagrant in the experiment. One finding was that cropping led to poaching for bush meat. This was because local people who lived with animals did not benefit from the wildlife like the ranchers who were licensed to crop. Ultimately, this report led to the suspension of the cropping experiment.

Ranchers clamoring for cropping must be reminded that much of the wildlife on their land migrates from national parks and reserves.

Data from the Department of Remote Sensing and Survey indicates that Kenya’s wildlife population has declined by more than 58% in the last two decades. Do we imagine that the Kenya Wildlife Service will be able to regulate cropping, as an additional chore, when it has been unable to stop poaching of keystone species as elephants and rhinos?

A 2007 survey of local communities in 21 regions of Kenya found that 76% of them opposed sport-hunting, cropping, and culling of wildlife, for reasons ranging from adverse effects on tourism to the threat to national security which could result from proliferation of small firearms.

Kenya should also take heed of the experience of other nations that have practiced “consumptive utilization” of wildlife, also known as “sustainable use.”

For instance, the hunting-centered Community Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources in Zimbabwe has failed to achieve its official objective of ensuring that rural communities benefit. Scholars from the University of Zimbabwe have found that local households receive as little as $1.00 to $3.00 per year in dividends from CAMPFIRE, while district councils retain 50% to 90% of the revenue.

In West African countries that allowed consumptive utilization, including Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Liberia, there is hardly any wildlife left. In Tanzania, local communities have strongly decried hunting, particularly in Loliondo, where a Dubai-based company has been accused of organizing wanton wildlife massacres.

Cropping contradicts all of the wildlife conservation and tourism principles that Kenya has stood for over the years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Josphat Ngonyo serves as Executive Director of Africa Network for Animal Welfare. He can be reached at
P.O. Box 3731-00506, Nairobi, Kenya
Phone: +254-020-600-6510
Cell: +254-722-243-091
<jos@anaw.org>
<www.anaw.org>

60 Minutes discovers Paul Watson’s Whale Wars

PATRICE GREANVILLE

Capt. Paul Watson.

It only took the mainstream media several decades to discover Paul Watson’s brave defense of the whales, despite the fact that just about everyone in the animal rights movement and radical conservationism knew of his Sea Shepherd organization’s legendary work since the days it began with the support of visionary leaders like Cleveland Amory, Brigitte Bardot, and others of that caliber. It’s fortunate that Watson’s supporters are the kind of people who have little trouble seeing through the hypocrisy of those who accuse him and his methods of “vigilantism,” of being “violent”, or, as is the fad these days, of being a “terrorist,” —all of which is as ludicrous as it gets considering how easy it is to identify those who really make the wounds.

Courageous, well-informed, and frequent media coverage is the solution, but such coverage should not neutralize its potential good by yielding to the usual “she said, he said” reflex that so many members of the commercial press utilize to pretend professional objectivity. Many issues, as we have often argued in these pages, don’t have two morally valid sides, nor is the truth planted on some mythical midpoint defined by “reasonableness.” Japan and other cynical marine exploiters are in the wrong in this case. Period. The mantle of legality they claim is only a result of political chicanery and scandalously deficient leadership, something we in the US should know something about.

No common sense in this world

Looking at the record it’s clear that most countries, starting with the United States, which seldom lacks resources to meddle in questionable if not downright criminal ways around the world, have played a largely feckless role in the defense of marine life in general.

To this day, US foreign policy does not include strong support for nor preventive and/ or punitive measures to insure compliance with regulations designed to protect animals from exploitative international trade, be they rhinos, elephants, lions, tigers, sea turtles, endangered birds, or whales, by offending countries across the globe. (Spain, for example, has one of the largest fleets devoted to sharkfinning to satisfy oriental markets.) In this as in many other instances the US and similar powers put economic and strategic alliances that benefit a puny minority way ahead of planetary defense, let alone invest public policy with a modicum of morality.

Speaking for myself, and am pretty sure I’m far from alone in this, I’d much rather see the immense resources of the US deployed to protect the environment and animals instead of being used to advance imperial goals. It’s a shame, and a reflection of how utterly ridiculous and irrelevant governments have become in regard to urgent issues, that a puny activist flotilla, legally persecuted at that, has to stand up for these victimized cetaceans, and wage risky “whale wars,” while American diplomacy and the great US Navy and similar fleets do less than nothing in this regard. I could go on but I think you get the point. Perhaps some day, after the world has undergone a true revolution, we will see public moneys spent in an intelligent and compassionate way.

NRA’s Tony Makris Hitler Comment: ‘Under Wild Skies’ Hunted And Killed After Host Shoots Elephant

UnderWildSkiesTony NBC Sports and the Outdoor Channel have both dropped the NRA-sponsored “Under Wild Skies,” which aired an episode in which its host, Tony Makris, killed an African elephant. Facebook

A big-game hunting show is facing extinction following a controversial episode that featured its host shooting an elephant in the face.

“Under Wild Skies,” an NRA-sponsored sports [sic] program, came under fierce criticism last week when it aired the episode, which was filmed in Botswana’s Okavango Delta in September 2012. NRA lobbyist Tony Makris, who hosts the show, shot an African elephant and then celebrated the kill with a champagne toast. News of the episode spread quickly around the Internet, and multiple petitions sprouted up calling for the show’s cancellation. The largest of those petitions, on Causes.com, was signed by almost 100,000 people.

Makris

Makris was unmoved by the blowback. Defending his actions on an NRA News radio show, the host proceeded to dig a deeper PR hole for himself by going where many extremists have gone before: comparing those who don’t agree with him to Hitler. As Makris tells it, the argument that it’s okay to hunt some animals — deer and rabbits, for instance — but not others is nothing more than a “very unique form of animal racism.”

statement to Deadspin the next day, a spokesperson for NBC Sports, one of the networks that aired “Under Wild Skies,” called Makris’ comments “outrageous and unacceptable,” and said the network would no longer air the series. By Monday, that decision had apparently spread to the Outdoor Channel, which also aired the series. The network has since deleted clips of the show from its online archives, and a prompt on its website says, “Under Wild Skies is currently airing on another network.” A spokesperson for Outdoor Channel did not respond to a request for more information. (The Facebook page for the series also appears to have been deleted.)

UWSheader The Outdoor Channel apparently dropped “Under Wild Skies” with no explanation. Outdoor Channel/Screenshot

In the meantime, it’s unclear if the show will continue. The NRA, which sponsors the program, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Winnercomm Inc., which produces it.

Though highly controversial, big-game hunting is still legal in certain parts of central Africa. Supporters say the hunting industry brings revenue that goes toward conversation and helps protect natural habitats, but animal-rights advocates aren’t convinced.

“I’d like to see the evidence of that,” said Nicole Meyer, an elephant specialist who works with the group In Defense of Animals (IDA). “African elephants are being poached at record levels these years for ivory. The bottom line is there are alternatives for conserving species and protecting natural habitats, rather than killing individual animals for the sheer thrill of the ‘hunt.’”

Meyer added that hunting has contributed to a decline in wildlife populations, forcing African lawmakers to take action. For instance, the government of Botswana, where the “Under Wild Skies” segment was shot, recently passed a law that will ban all wildlife hunting in the country beginning in 2014, as the American Conservation Foundation reported.

At least one environmental group, CNemoGlobal, has filed a complaint with the FCC urging it to investigate NBC Sports’ connection to the NRA, citing a “disturbing and depraved indifference to animal suffering and American humane values.”

NBC Sports is owned by NBCUniversal, a unit of Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA). Outdoor Channel was recently purchased by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, LLC.

Got a news tip? Send me an email. Follow me on Twitter: @christopherzara

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South Dakota: RECORD-SETTING BLIZZARD KILLS 75,000 COWS

ENVIRONMENT

AND YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE EVEN HEARD ABOUT IT

By Liz Klimas

Ranchers are still digging out thousands of their cattle that became buried in a record-setting snowstorm in South Dakota late last week and over the weekend.

One would think the death of 75,000 cows by upwards of five feet of snow might get some national attention, but as one blogger observed, it has taken some time for the news of the precipitation massacre to reach outside of local media.

“I searched the national news for more information. Nothing. Not a single report on any of major news sources that I found. Not CNN, not the NY Times, not MSNBC,” Dawn Wink wrote Tuesday. “I thought, ‘Well, it is early and the state remains without power and encased in snow, perhaps tomorrow.’ So I checked again the next day. Nothing. It has now been four days and no national news coverage.”

Wink dubbed it “The Blizzard that Never Was.”

National syndicated photo services also yield only a few results documenting the storm. The Weather Channel, taking photo submissions from locals, seems to have the most dramatic pictures of the scene.

spearfish south dakota snow

At least four deaths were attributed to the weather, including a South Dakota man who collapsed while cleaning snow off his roof.

Gary Cammack, who ranches on the prairie near Union Center about 40 miles northeast of the Black Hills, said he lost about 70 cows and some calves, about 15 percent of his herd. A calf would normally sell for $1,000, while a mature cow would bring $1,500 or more, he said.

“It’s bad. It’s really bad. I’m the eternal optimist and this is really bad,” Cammack said. “The livestock loss is just catastrophic. … It’s pretty unbelievable.”

rapid city sd snow

Cammack said cattle were soaked by 12 hours of rain early in the storm, so many were unable to survive an additional 48 hours of snow and winds up to 60 mph.

“It’s the worst early season snowstorm I’ve seen in my lifetime,” said Cammack, 60.

“As the days warm, more and more carcasses are exposed. So many have lost so much,” Wink, the blogger, wrote of her mom saying.

“It’s the worst early season snowstorm I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Early estimates suggest western South Dakota lost at least 5 percent of its cattle, said Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association. Some individual ranchers reported losses of 20 percent to 50 percent of their livestock, Christen said. The storm killed calves that were due to be sold soon as well as cows that would produce next year’s calves in an area where livestock production is a big part of the economy, she said.

“This is, from an economic standpoint, something we’re going to feel for a couple of years,” Christen said.

ellsworth air force base snow

Some ranchers still aren’t sure how many animals they lost, because they haven’t been able to track down all of their cattle. Snowdrifts covered fences, allowing cattle to leave their pastures and drift for miles.

“Some cattle might be flat buried in a snow bank someplace,” said Shane Kolb of Meadow, who lost only one cow.

State officials are tallying livestock losses, but the extent won’t be known for several days until ranchers locate their cattle, Jamie Crew of the state Agriculture Department said.

“This is absolutely, totally devastating,” Steve Schell, a 52-year-old rancher, told the Rapid City Journal. “This is horrendous. I mean the death loss of these cows in this country is unbelievable.”

Ranchers and officials said the losses were aggravated by the fact that a government disaster program to help ranchers recover from livestock losses has expired. Ranchers won’t be able to get federal help until Congress passes a new farm bill, said Perry Plumart, a spokesman for Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D.

NBC News reported that State Agriculture Secretary Lucas Lentsch said ranchers should keep a accounts of their loss with photos to use in later claims.

More than 22,000 homes and businesses in western South Dakota remained without power into this week, according to utility companies. National Guard troops were helping utility crews pull equipment through the heavy, wet snow to install new electricity poles.

At least 1,600 poles were toppled in the northwest part of the state alone, and workers expect to find more, Grand River Electric Coop spokeswoman Tally Seim said.

“We’ve got guys flying over our territory, counting as they go. We’re finding more as we are able to access the roads. The roads have been pretty blocked on these rural country roads,” Seim said.

“One of our biggest challenges is getting access to areas that are still snowed in,” added Vance Crocker, vice president of operations for Black Hills Power, whose crews were being hampered by rugged terrain in the Black Hills region.

In Rapid City, where a record-breaking 23 inches of snow fell, travel was slowly getting back to normal.

The city’s airport and all major roadways in the region had reopened by Monday. The city’s streets also were being cleared, but residents were being asked to stay home so crews could clear downed power lines and tree branches, and snow from roadsides. Schools and many public offices were closed.

“It’s a pretty day outside. There’s a lot of debris, but we’re working to clear that debris,” said Calen Maningas, a Rapid City firefighter working in the Pennington County Emergency Operations Center.

In South Dakota, the 19 inches of snow that fell in Rapid City on Friday broke the city’s 94-year-old one-day snowfall record for October by about 9 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The city also set a record for snowfall in October, with a total of 23.1 inches during the storm. The previous record was 15.1 inches in October 1919.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.